Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Cave Carson Writers

Cave Carson, master spelunker, Christie Madison, geologist, and Bulldozer Smith, ex-sandhog strong man, adventured inside Earth in the Mighty Mole, an update of Abner Perry's mole machine in Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar novels. Instead of a mechanical screw, this one used an unnamed laser beam—a "thermo ray"—to cut into the rock of the crust. Their first adventure read like a novel itself when I found it as a preteen.

Upon their return in the Showcase run the team did without the Mighty Mole, and made do with mascot Lena the lemur. Bob Haney was credited in the letters page in Showcase 49: "Bob Haney now writes INSIDE EARTH." Note the "now"; he didn't write it before 1964. There was a change of editors: Jack Schiff on Cave's B&Bs, Murray Boltinoff on the Showcases. France Edward Herron is known to have worked on Cave; but a Ka-fuuush! in B&B 33 indicates Dave Wood, and In the next startling moment... and Tense hours elapse... point to Jack Miller in #41. There was only one more artist (four) than writer (three) on the five stories in B&B; Showcase stuck to the one creative team.